


Brilliance

by MotherRameses



Series: Between Batonn and the Unknown [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Gatalenta, Holdo talks to a clone about (her) death, sky-faring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-10
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-10-25 13:57:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17726525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MotherRameses/pseuds/MotherRameses
Summary: Amylin Holdo has a sky-faring lesson back home on Gatalenta.





	Brilliance

"You're quiet, today." Flex's voice cut into Amylin's thoughts, but she didn't open her eyes. She had been following the seemingly non-sensical patterns that flowed in the darkness when she closed her lids. Purples, blues, blacks, struck through at random with streaks of gold and white and glittering stars blossoming when and where they saw fit. Rippling, like drops of water in a cold pond, disturbing the tranquility of the imagined stillness and casting shadows previously non-existent. Funny, what one saw when one closed their eyes, if they chose to continue to see. 

"What do you think of death?" She replied a few minutes later, when the roar of the colors behind her lids became so great even she could no longer focus on them. She heard the gentle _swish_  of Flex, her sky-faring tutor, sliding down his silks and the soft pad of his feet on the floor.

"Come down, and I'll tell you." 

She still kept her eyes closed, but instead of looking into the darkness behind her lids, looked out into her body. She saw the silks gently cradling her legs and torso, saw the wraps they created and the lines they followed. She saw her muscles tense and pull, working as though extensions of the soft fabric, cradling her blood and her bones. She saw where the silk's grip ended, and her body's began. She let go. 

Down she tumbled, letting Gatalenta pull her down back into his warm embrace. Spinning and rolling through the silks until only her body remained. Feet to floor, body to ground, vessel to vessel. 

Once back on the padded mats, she opened her eyes. The old clone was sitting on the floor, stretching his sore muscles. She joined him, and began to stretch as well. The tug and pull of sinew, burn and relief and burn again, as she willed it. 

"I'll die before you." Flex said. She watched him gracefully bend at the waist, touching his head to his knees and holding the pose. 

"No, you won't." Amylin replied. 

He sat up and looked at her, waiting for her to elaborate. She crossed her legs and rested her chin in her hands, peering at him thoughtfully. 

"You'll grow old. Actual old. I don't know where, or when, you'll realize it. But you will." She didn't know how she knew this, just like how she didn't know where her eyes found the colors beneath the seemingly pale flesh of her eyelids. But just as her eyes always found the colors, she knew old age would find Flex.

He nodded. "You don't think you will?" He casually reached forward and began tugging at his toes, joints popping as he pulled the supple digits. 

She listened to the soft crackle of his feet, watching as his hands worked in a habitual pattern - start with the big toe, turn, pop, move to the next. Then, grasp the foot itself, twist and turn and pop, then rework the toes for any joints too stubborn to yield at first tug. 

"I will grow old. But when I die, before you, I will not feel old." 

"How do you know?" 

She didn't reply. How could she put her knowledge to words? She closed her eyes again, finding the colors spinning and flowing. She watched them, then looked for the colors in herself. Black, but not pitch, in her arms and legs and back and shoulders and feet and hands, different shades of the color struck through with greys, shadows, crevasses and crannies all harboring secrets. Her body was a diary, it's story written and rewritten with every movement and thought. But the story of her body told her of an end. Light would shine in all the dark corners, cast it's brilliance on secrets hidden. How else would she get to know them? 

A shrug would do. "How do you not?"

**Author's Note:**

> I think about death, maybe too much? And I think Holdo does too. But I don't think that thinking about death is a bad thing. And I don't think she does, either.
> 
> Edit (added like, months after i wrote this) - yeah, i dunno how i feel about this. I was having some really rough intrusive thoughts and this is what came out of it. Leaving it up because I don't like to delete stuff but... yeah.


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